♪ >>> welcome to cbs this morning. we begin with this powerful storm system that caused a string of tornadoes that damaged buildings and knocked out hour in places like louisiana, mississippi, and alabama. it dropped heavy snow in parts of texas, oklahoma, and arkansas. >> it's blamed for three deaths and we'll check the forecast but we begin in hard hit mobile alabama where blake brown of our cbs affiliate is watching the tornado damage blake, good morning. >>> good morning this is the scene here in mobile, we have big trees down powerlines down, roof damage and it is just hours after the storm ripped through the city. >> volatile conditions as tornadoes toucheddown around mobile. >> i was screams and hollaring, and i was just scared to death. >> we ran into the cooler, got all of the employees in the cooler, and it came right over us. >> it blew the roofs off of homes, and on this christmas day, not even a house of worship was safe. the front wall was torn off. >> look at that tornado. >> across much of the south, ma